ISRAEL - "Lasting security for a Jewish and democratic Israel will not be possible without a viable and democratic Palestinian state," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a speech to Israel's citizens in honor of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany.

ISRAEL - While Netanyahu fantasizes about a détente with the Arab world, the US and EU are ready to turn up the heat on his new government. Forget the United States of America. Move over, Canada, Australia and Germany. The days when those countries were considered Israel’s closest friends are over. The Jewish state’s new best buddies are Egypt and Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “Our best allies actually these days are some of our Arab neighbors, because they know we face a common threat,” Netanyahu said Tuesday at a conference in Jerusalem. The idea he referred to is not new: Israel and the so-called moderate Sunni Arab states have a common foe in Iran, and the enemy of my worst enemy must be my best friend.

USA - The drought devastation has gotten worse in Tulare County in the weeks since we examined the lack of water as part of our five-part drought series. Conditions are desperate enough that neighbors are stealing water from each other.

With so many people desperately in need, so many hundreds without water, Pastor Ramon Hernandez’s donated drinking water is almost always in short supply. “It’s all over the county, all over the valley, but this is the worst of the worst, the east side of Porterville,” he said. The Tule River once supplied the wells that have long since run dry. Now, the riverbed has turned into a dumping ground with not a drop of water to be found.

USA - The Agriculture Department has developed the first government certification and labelling for foods that are free of genetically modified ingredients. USDA's move comes as some consumer groups push for mandatory labelling of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Certification would be voluntary — and companies would have to pay for it. The bill, introduced earlier this year by Representative Mike Pompeo, Republican for Kansas, provides for USDA certification but would not make it mandatory. The bill also would override any state laws that require the labelling.

IRAN - The deputy chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces warned on Tuesday that Iran would retaliate in force against any country which attacks an Iranian ship heading to Yemen with humanitarian aid cargo on board. “Attacking the Iranian Red Crescent aid ship will spark war in the region”, Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri told the Arabic-language TV Alalam. “The US and Saudi Arabia should know that Iran’s self-restraint has a limit,” he cautioned. An Iranian ship carrying 2,500 tons of medical supplies, relief workers and peace activists from several countries left the Southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas for Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hudaydah, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

USA - It would appear someone at NBC News got a rather large tap on the shoulder. In what is a stunning reversal of their confirmation that President Obama lied and was lying about the killing of bin Laden, NBC News has updated their original story - that "two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a 'walk in' asset from Pakistani intelligence told the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding" - to this - "Sources say that while the asset provided information vital to the hunt for bin Laden, he was not the source of his whereabouts." The White House says the Hersh’s investigation is riddled with inaccuracies. As Slate concludes, while NBC’s story doesn’t use the word correction or retraction, that’s what this appears to be. Did the most transparent administration in history just transparently strong-arm the press?

UK - David Cameron is actually going to tell his National Security Council this as he announces plans to crack down on radicalisation. According to a briefing, Cameron is expected to say: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach." He will say Britons believe in “certain values”, adding: “To belong here is to believe in these things, and it means confronting head-on the poisonous Islamist extremist ideology. Whether they are violent in their means or not, we must make it impossible for the extremists to succeed.”

ITALY - Across the stony heel of Italy, a peninsula ringed by the blue-green waters of the Mediterranean, olive trees have existed for centuries, shaping the landscape and producing some of the nation’s finest olive oils. Except now, many of the trees are dying. “It is devastating,” said Enzo Manni, the director of ACLI-Racale, an olive cooperative in the heart of the outbreak area. “It is apocalyptic. I compare it to an earthquake.” Today, scientists estimate that one million olive trees in the peninsula, known as the Salento, are infected with the bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, a figure that could rise rapidly. Most of all, olive growers fear that a way of life that has sustained generations could disappear. Already, production is dropping at many farms in the region.

USA - More than two out of five American honeybee colonies died in the past year, and surprisingly the worst die-off was in the summer, according to a federal survey. Since April 2014, beekeepers lost 42.1 percent of their colonies, the second highest loss rate in nine years, according to an annual survey conducted by a bee partnership that includes the US Department of Agriculture. "What we're seeing with this bee problem is just a loud signal that there's some bad things happening with our agro-ecosystems," said study co-author Keith Delaplane at the University of Georgia. "We just happen to notice it with the honeybee because they are so easy to count."

USA - Humans have become so obsessed with portable devices and overwhelmed by content that we now have attention spans shorter than that of the previously jokingly juxtaposed goldfish. Microsoft surveyed 2,000 people and used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to monitor the brain activity of another 112 in the study, which sought to determine the impact that pocket-sized devices and the increased availability of digital media and information have had on our daily lives. Among the good news in the 54-page report is that our ability to multi-task has drastically improved in the information age, but unfortunately attention spans have fallen. In 2000 the average attention span was 12 seconds, but this has now fallen to just eight. The goldfish is believed to be able to maintain a solid nine.

UNITED NATIONS - Should we be concerned about this new sustainable development agenda? The UN plans to launch a brand new plan for managing the entire globe at the Sustainable Development Summit that it will be hosting from September 25th to September 27th. Some of the biggest names on the planet, including Pope Francis, will be speaking at this summit.

VATICAN - The Vatican said Wednesday that it had concluded a treaty to recognize Palestinian statehood, a symbolic but significant step welcomed by Palestinians but upsetting to the Israeli government. Neville Y Lamdan, a former Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, said the main importance of the Vatican recognition of Palestinian statehood was the “moral authority and weight” it confers.

“The real question is why the Vatican came round to this step,” Mr Lamdan said. “It certainly would be a very deliberate and carefully weighed decision; there’s nothing accidental about it.”

USA - Obama and his regime are on the defensive as Hersh reveals the many, many lies (some of which led to the deaths of innocent people) that Obama told about his assassination of bin Laden. Hersh’s report details those lies, and concludes: “High-level lying … remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no.” Seemingly unable to help himself, and as if trying to offer immediate confirmation of Hersh’s analysis, Obama announced that “Pakistanis did not know” about the US raid. NBC then confirmed that very aspect of Hersh’s report, saying yes, a “Pakistani official helped the US find bin Laden”.

GREECE - Here is a slightly surprising sign that Greece is in the classic throes of a bank run: car sales jumped by 47 percent in April. It was the 20th consecutive month that car registrations of new and used vehicles has risen. People living in a country gripped by financial turmoil often worry about the security of their money. If it's in a bank, it can be caught up in capital controls or lost through insolvency. Better, then, to spend it. And the purchase of choice is often a car. This makes motor vehicle sales a decent proxy for financial turmoil (under some circumstances). Ordinary Greeks, many of whom are not wealthy enough to hold bank accounts outside of the country, are taking their money out of the financial system and spending it on "hard" assets.

GREECE - Screens in Athens’ metro stations that generally provide weather forecasts have now been used to show controversial contents, including a government-backed film demanding World War II reparations from Germany. Greece's deputy finance minister recently said that Germany owed the country nearly 279 billion euros ($313 billion) in war reparations for the Nazi occupation during World War II. The 50-second short film, featuring footage from the Nazi occupation, has been broadcast in 35 metro stations in Athens since the end of April, as the Greek government pushes for war damages from Germany, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.